


george romero is dead; long live george romero

by ghosthunter



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthunter/pseuds/ghosthunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living in the mall is simultaneously the best idea, and the worst idea they've ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	george romero is dead; long live george romero

Living in the mall is simultaneously the best idea, and the worst idea they've ever had.

On one hand, it's kind of practical, and second only to living in a Wal-Mart. In fact, the only reason they weren't living a Wal-Mart was because all of the ones they had passed had been looted, doors shattered out. Apparently no one had thought to loot the mall.

Or too many people had seen _Dawn of the Dead_ and couldn't face the idea of holing up in a mall.

That was the other hand: living Romero-style in a mall had a certain charm, and appealed to the little boy shoved deep down inside who had watched a thousand zombie movies a thousand times. Romero had taught them all how to stay alive inside a mall for an extended period of time.

Provided the zombies didn't break in. Which, well... it could happen.

But the mall was not even remotely the beginning of the story.

***

The first thing Mikey is aware of is Alicia's feet pressing against his calves like little cubes of ice. He jerks his legs away sleepily, tugging at the blankets where she's hoarded them all to her side of the bed.

"Someone's at the door," she tells him. "You should go get it."

Mikey grunts at her unintelligibly. The next thing he feels is a very strategic finger poked into his ribs. It hurts. He squirms across the bed away from her jabby little finger but doesn't get out of bed.

"Baby," she says. He cracks an eye open and looks at her, sprawled out on her stomach beside him in the bed, her hand outstretched toward him. Her eyes aren't even open.

"Fine," he says, pushing himself up and leaning over, kissing her softly before getting out of the bed, reaching out to grab a pair of discarded pants from the floor to tug on over his boxers .

He's halfway down the steps, tugging a t-shirt over his head, when he realizes that it is still pitch dark outside. And the knocking at the door isn't so much knocking as it is scratching and the occasional thumping. Right. So there is, maybe, a drunk at his door. Or a raccoon. Or something.

Did L.A. even have raccoons?

He reaches out to pull the curtains over the window in the door to the side to peek out , and all of a sudden, the window explodes inward and a hand shoots through.

Mikey lets out a shriek, a totally manly shriek, as he tries to get away. The hand has hold of him too tightly, and he feels his shirt ripping, even as a piece of glass slices through his bare foot. Faced with the pain in his foot and the blank, dead eyes he can see through the door, Mikey does what anyone would do.

He yells for help.

Alicia must have been able to hear the panic in his voice because she makes it down the stairs in less than a minute, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and nearly falling over Piglet, who's beaten her to the bottom of the stairs and is snarling and barking at the thing - the zombie - trying to drag itself through the broken window in the door. Or maybe it's trying to drag Mikey out.

"There's glass on the floor," Mikey says helplessly. His bloody foot is braced against the door, pushing himself backward as he tries to pry the fingers from his shirt. Their grip is too tight, and the way they're pulling keeps him from ducking out of the shirt. He's afraid to step on glass with the other foot. If he does, there's no way they'll be able to get away if they have to run.

He sees Alicia's indecision, and the look of helplessness that crosses her face. Mikey briefly wishes that, like his brother, he had a weird habit of buying Samurai swords. That would come in so fucking handy right about now. Alicia jumps over Pig and heads for the kitchen.

"Hurry!" he yells, then he turns his head to look at the dog. "Pig! Sit! Hush!" She's not helping the situation by barking incessantly, and he's afraid that her barking will attract more than just the one fucking zombie that's trying to crawl through their front door. Mikey doesn't have a hand to give the hand signals to make Piglet do what he wants.

Alicia comes running back with knives in both hands. Abstractly, Mikey wants to mention that it's best not to run with knives. It's a weird thing to think when she's basically coming to slice a zombie's hand off.

"Watch out for the glass," Mikey tells her. Alicia gives him an incredulous look, and he knows she thinks he's insane for worrying about something like that, but he can't help himself.

"Dog walking shoes," Alicia tells him, and jabs the knife into the zombie's wrist. It screams, but doesn't seem to care that it now has a knife sticking out of its arm and doesn't let go of Mikey's shirt.

"Cut its arm off!" Mikey yells. "Tell the dog to shut up. I can't do the - " He jerks his head, trying to indicate the hand motion he means.

"Pig," Alicia says, letting go of the knife in the zombie's wrist. "Sit." She points at the floor. "Stay. Shh." She holds her finger up to her lips, and Piglet sits on the floor, her claws scrabbling. She whines a bit, then is silent.

Alicia jabs the other knife into the zombie's face.

It screams and jerks back, its hand convulsing, and Mikey falls backward onto the floor. The knife is sticking out of the zombie's eye. It reaches for Alicia now instead, and she grabs hold of the knife sticking out of its wrist and twists. It screams more, and she jerks it free. They have to kill it somehow, but the last thing either of them want to do is open the door.

So Alicia does the next best thing and shoves the other knife into the zombie's other eye. Mikey understands what she's thinking, if maybe she can just scramble its brains, it will let up, but it isn't. Mikey doesn't know what else to do, and now it has hold of Alicia's shirt. He scrambles to his feet and runs for the hall closet.

There has to be something he can use, he thinks, jerking the closet open. It's full of a tangle of coats and boots, nothing that will help the situation. He wonders if an umbrella will be enough, and grabs it anyway. He goes back to the door, stepping carefully around the glass, and slams the handle of the umbrella down on the zombie's wrist.

"We have to kill it," he tells Alicia, who is breathing hard and pushing her hair off of her face.

"With _what_?" Mikey asks, exasperated.

"Don't use that tone with me," she tells him, tugging at her hair in frustration, taking a step back when the zombie reaches through the door again.

"Look, we have to get rid of it before it brings its zombie friends and they all break in and eat us," Mikey says.

"Is that shovel still in the garage?" Alicia asks suddenly. Mikey looks at her, confused. "The one we borrowed from Lyn that time I decided I was going to try and grow shit?"

"Maybe?" Mikey says. He remembers what she's talking about but doesn't remember anything about a shovel.

"Stay here," she says, and heads for the garage. Mikey stands there. The zombie has its face pressed through the hole in the door, knives sticking out of its eyes. Mikey wishes he had his phone. He'd take a picture. It's sniffing wildly, and he realizes that it's smelling the blood that's smeared all over the door and the floor from his bleeding foot.

Remembering that his foot is cut open makes it throb painfully.

Alicia comes back after a couple of minutes, shovel in hand. She's also carrying a rake. It's kind of a shitty rake, if Mikey remembers correctly, and he's not sure what she has in mind for it until she hands it to him.

"I want you to open the door," she says. "I'm going to kill this motherfucker."

Mikey really loves his wife.

He hobbles over and flips the locks, putting his hand on the knob. Then he counts to three, and Alicia adjusts her grip on the shovel. He briefly wonders why she's doing this instead of him, because he's a man and he should be protecting his wife, but he's also bleeding all over their foyer floor. He totally doesn't begrudge her wanting to beat the shit out of a zombie.

Mikey grips the rake in his hands, ready to jump in and save Alicia if he has to, but he doesn't have to. She pounds the zombie's skull to bits against their front porch, then comes back through the door, breathing hard, the shovel dripping gore onto the floor. Mikey closes the door and locks it.

"Go into the kitchen and sit down," she says between breaths. She has zombie splattered across her face and her hair is a wild mess. "I'll bandage up your foot and you can call your brother."

***

If Gerard were a normal person - society's idea of normal, anyway - he might be pissed off that someone was calling him at 4:26 in the morning. Gerard had never been much for sleeping during the night when he could have been working on something, so when the phone rang, it was just a matter of putting down the marker he was working with and finding his phone underneath the stack of discarded paper.

"Mikey?" he asked curiously. His brother didn't normally call that late at night unless there was something wrong.

"Shit - fuck - that fucking hurts," he hears Mikey saying, and Alicia saying something in response that Gerard can't quite make out.

"Mikes?" he asks, starting to feel a little tendril of worry in his stomach.

"Wanna hear about how Alicia just splattered a zombie's brains all over our front porch?" Mikey finally says, after a bit more swearing.

"What?" Gerard asks, not sure he's heard his brother correctly. There's more swearing from Mikey's end and Gerard hears Alicia distinctly saying "well it's fucking stuck in your foot" followed by something more garbled, and then "asshole."

"We just had a zombie try and break into our house," Mikey says. He sounds so casual about it that Gerard can't take him seriously.

"You know," he says, "if you'd woken me up to tell me this bullshit, I'd probably be pissed."

"You never sleep at night, and it's not bullshit," Mikey says. "We're packing bags and we're coming over. You should think about weapons."

"Yeah, okay," Gerard says.

"I mean it," Mikey says. "I'll see you in about an hour. Maybe less."

"Okay," Gerard repeats, then the line goes dead.

***

It doesn't take anywhere near an hour for Mikey and Alicia to throw some stuff into a bag and convince Pig that it was okay to go outside. She sat down in front of the door and whined at them. Mikey couldn't say he blamed her for not wanting to go outside, knowing that her mommy had splattered some monster's brains all over the porch, but they needed to go. Mikey was hobbling, and he was pretty sure that his sneaker was filling up with blood, and he didn't know how to convince the dog to leave the house.

"Take this," Alicia says, handing him her bag. She bends over and wraps both arms around Pig's middle, lifting her up, encouraging her across the threshold. Mikey leans on the handle of the shovel, weighted down on one side by their bags. He turns away from Alicia, looking around.

The thing is, he's seen a hundred zombie movies a hundred times in his life, and he knows better than to think there was just one zombie. In the confusion, he didn't stop to think about whether or not he recognized the zombie that was attacking him. It was male, and it was the only one he saw, and the only one he's seen, but that doesn't mean there aren't more out there, waiting to lurch from the bushes down by the road and shuffle up to jump on Alicia while she's trying to get Pig across their yard and into Gerard and Lyn's.

Nothing happens.

Once Alicia gets Piglet past the mess on the front porch and down into the grass, she's fine, wandering about at the end of the leash, sniffing things. "Where are the rest of them?" Alicia asks Mikey, reaching out to take her backpack from him.

"I don't know," Mikey says, leaning hard on the shovel as he walks across the grass. His foot is killing him, so if another zombie shows up and they have to run, he's going to get eaten in no time flat. "It's fuckin' weird."

"I'm sure that Gerard will have all of the answers," Alicia says. Mikey snorts. He guesses that if anyone he knows would know about zombies, it would be his brother.

The porch light is on when they get to Gerard and Lyn's, and Mikey doesn't bother knocking. He probably wouldn't bother giving much more than a cursory knock on the best day, but Gerard knows that they're on their way over. If it wasn't pushing five in the morning, Mikey would have yelled for his brother as he was barging in. Except, it was five in the morning and B was probably sleeping. Instead he locked the door behind him and tossed his bag down on the floor.

Gerard came down the hallway, wiping his hands on his t-shirt. He had marker streaked across one side of his face, and Mikey was pretty sure that he probably looked like less of a mess than he and Alicia did.

"So, did you really kill a zombie?" he asks. Mikey can hear the skepticism in his voice.

Mikey flips the shovel around and holds the flat out so Gerard can see it. They'd wiped it off on the grass, but there was still gore all over it. Gerard reaches out and takes it by the handle, out of Mikey's hand, and examines it up close.

"Nice," he said, handing it back to Mikey. "What the fuck happened?"

Alicia's the one who tells the story, letting Piglet off the leash. She wanders off to smell things, to possibly lick low along the wall where B has smeared sticky fingers. Mikey hobbles into the kitchen and sits down on the floor, taking his sneaker off. He's bled through the bandages that Alicia had stuck on his foot, and through his sock, and into his sneaker.

It pisses him off.

"So what happened to you?" Gerard asks, walking over to the refrigerator and grabbing them both bottles of water. Mikey sprawls out on the kitchen floor and looks up at his brother.

"I got zombie bit on my foot," Mikey says. Gerard doesn't even blink.

"Well, I'll be really torn up about it, but I guess I'll shoot you in the head if I have to," Gerard says sweetly, dropping the bottle to the floor next to Mikey's head. Mikey flinches and rolls away.

"Dick," he says. Gerard laughs.

Lyn comes into the kitchen on that note, wearing shorts and one of Gerard's t-shirts, pulling her hair back off of her face with one hand, holding Bandit on her hip with the other arm. She pauses, looking at Mikey laying on the floor, then blinks sleepily at her husband.

"I'm not even going to ask," she finally says, stepping over Mikey and going to the fridge. B watches them over Lyn's shoulder as she fills up a sippy cup for the toddler.

"Alicia killed a zombie," Gerard says, reaching out to take Bandit from her mother.

"Uh huh," Lyn says, handing the cup to Bandit. "I'm going back to bed. You can tell me all about it in the morning."

***

As it happens, the zombie Alicia killed isn't the only one out there. It might be the only one that wandered up the street and onto her porch, but it's not the only zombie roaming the streets.

Once Mikey is bandaged again, he makes his way to Gerard's living room to turn on the TV. It seems like the best place to learn of their impending doom, and besides - Gerard has a super comfortable couch that he's currently not using while he's trying to get his daughter back to sleep. Mikey props his foot up on the arm of the couch and takes up the entire space, leaving Alicia to the loveseat. Why does Gerard even have a loveseat? He is not necessarily a loveseat type of person.

It's possible that Mikey's brain is making forcible digressions. There's too much cognitive dissonance with the whole "zombies totally exist" thing for him to deal with, and he has to force himself to stare at the news report on the television rather than staring at the object his wife is sitting on and wondering when his brother became the kind of person who owns actual pieces of furniture and not just milk crates and futons. 

The newscaster is talking about zombie outbreaks and what people need to do to keep themselves and their families safe. Mikey keeps hearing the words "aim for the head" and "stay indoors." It's the most rudimentary of zombie battle strategy, and no one they see on the television thinks to mention what you're supposed to do when the zombies stop shuffling around outside and start trying to come inside.

There are graphics that show the infection spreading up the coast, with hot-spots in major cities. The newscaster claims that the outbreak in LA is the worst, possibly even the origin site, and things are spreading outward from there. The virus was accidentally created in a medical facility, he explains, but then reports start to differ of where. Some say BioMed. Some say Cedars-Sinai. All say the government is working as quickly as possible to remedy the situation, don't kill zombies unless you have to because there could potentially be a cure.

Gerard laughs, and Mikey starts. He can't remember when Gerard came into the room. He's been hanging on the newscaster's every word since they turned the TV on. Mikey tilts his head back and looks up at Gerard, who makes his way over to take the seat next to Alicia on the loveseat that Mikey can't even believe he has.

"How's your foot?" he asks at the same time Alicia says, "Why wouldn't there be a cure?"

"There's never a cure," Gerard says. "We'll have to find a safe place where we can live and make sure that they can't get in to get us."

"The news says it was created in a lab," Alicia says. "The virus. Why couldn't they manufacture a cure? Or at least a vaccine."

"That's just not how it works," Gerard insists. If anything, he's an expert on zombies.

"Okay," Mikey says. "But there aren't generally zombies in real life."

"We all have a contingency plan," Gerard says.

"Which means what?" Alicia asks. "That we're just going to stay here until they come for us? Because one just tried to eat my husband, if you remember."

"Yeah, G," Mikey says. "One tried to eat her husband." He lifts his head up. "Hey, is my foot still bleeding?" He wiggles his toes at them.

"You haven't bled through the Band-Aids yet," Alicia says. "So stop wiggling your foot. That'll make it bleed more."

"Will it?" Gerard asks, eyeing the bottom of Mikey's foot.

"I don't know, but that makes sense, doesn't it?" Alicia says. Pig wanders into the room from who knows where and flops down on the floor beside Mikey. He reaches out a hand and scratches between her ears.

"So are we going to stay here or what?" Mikey says. "I mean, if there's only one zombie up here, how long can we stay? Until we run out of food? Because let me tell you what, I hope you've been to the grocery store because we sure can't pillage my fridge."

"Mikey is currently going through one of those phases. You know - " Alicia starts, but Mikey cuts her off.

"I am not," he says.

"You know," she continues, undaunted, "when he decides he's just going to eat his weight in delivery sushi every night."

"So not true," Mikey protests.

"Absolutely true," Alicia says.

"Okay, so food," Gerard interrupts them. "Which we have, because we actually go to the grocery store here so we don't get mercury poisoning."

"I'm not going to get mercury poisoning," Mikey says.

"Anyway," Gerard says. "We have food for a couple of days. Well, probably more than a couple of days, but I don't think we should try and leave here for a while unless we absolutely have to."

"The roads will be jammed," Mikey says.

"Exactly. If we can wait - I don't know, a week or so, we'll be able to get out with no trouble," Gerard says.

"I don't like that you're banking on other people being eaten," Alicia puts in, then holds up her hands in defense as Mikey and Gerard both turn to look at her. "Not that I'm not willing to sacrifice other people for our survival, but I'm just saying. Not all of those people are just going to get eaten and die. Some of them are going to become zombies too."

"Then the first thing we're going to need to do when we leave is get more weapons. Long range weapons," Gerard says.

"That's awfully dependent on us knowing how to shoot guns," Mikey says. 

"Lyn knows how to shoot a gun," Gerard says. "And when we get them, she'll teach the rest of us. And we'll learn."

Piglet gets up from the floor and whines, snuffling at Mikey's face.

"I really don't want to let her outside," Alicia says, getting up from the couch. "I have to go with her."

"Let me grab you something," Gerard says, jumping up and heading down the hall to wherever he kept his bizarre collections of weird things.

Mikey sat up on the couch and watched Alicia lead Pig into the kitchen and toward the back door. Gerard comes back and offers her a Samurai sword.

"It's dangerous to go alone," he says. "Take this." 

Alicia laughs as she walks out the back door.

***

"We need something more than swords. We can't just fight them off with those. They'll get too close."

Lyn is sitting at the kitchen table, watching as Mikey teaches her daughter to catch Cheerios in her mouth. She's going to choke, or worse, she's going to start throwing Cheerios at all of their faces while they try to eat. At least she knows how to do the Heimlich.

"It's safer for us to stay here, though," Gerard says. He's leaning against the counter, drinking the last cup of coffee. Behind him, the coffee machine is bubbling away, brewing a new pot. Lindsey is the only one who's had any sleep, other than Bandit, and Alicia is sitting at the table next to Lyn, leaning on her hand, eyes closed.

At least until a Cheerio hits her in the face.

"Hey," she says, opening an eye and glaring at Mikey.

"She did it," he tells her, pointing at her niece.

"Yeah, blame the baby," Alicia says. She smiles and bumps into him with her shoulder.

"I just think that, you know, maybe we should go and try get something," Lyn says. "I mean, obviously there are some of us who should get some sleep - " she pauses, giving Gerard a hard look, and completely ignoring Alicia half asleep against Mikey's shoulder, " - and we should make a plan and decide where to go."

Nobody suggests calling to see if people are okay. It's some sort of unspoken agreement that none of them want to call family or friends to find out that their family and friends are the walking dead. It's just guns and where they're going to go when they run out of food.

"We can't all go out to hunt for guns," Gerard says. "I think we should be... more well armed? I mean, at least before we try to take B out of the house."

Lindsey frowns, thinking. None of them should be left alone. They need to work in pairs. She also realizes that she should be one of the ones going to get the guns. She's the one that frequents shooting ranges. She's the one that knows what she's doing.

"You wanna stay here with B?" she asks. Gerard is silent, and she knows that he's torn between going with her and leaving his daughter behind, or staying with his daughter and not knowing if his wife will come back.

"One of you should stay," Mikey says. He doesn't look at either of them, and Lyn watches Mikey squeeze Alicia's hand. "In case."

Lyn knows what he means. There's a possibility that whoever leaves the house to try and find guns will die - well, there's a possibility that they'll all die, eventually, but leaving the house makes it more imminent. None of them want to leave Bandit without at least one of her parents.

"I'll go with you," Alicia says sleepily, sitting up and stretching. "Just let me wash my face."

"You should sleep first," Lyn says. "We don't absolutely have to go right now - we can go tomorrow. We'll all take turns sleeping and keeping watch. I think... would it be better to all stay in one general area so there aren't too many windows and doors?"

"Probably upstairs," Gerard says. "We can block off the stairs with a baby gate. We'll know if they try to get over it. I'm sure it won't go well."

"Pig will hear if the glass breaks," Mikey says. Piglet is sleeping on the tile near the back door, snoring slightly.

"True," Lyn says. She gets up from the table and walks over to unhook Bandit from her high chair. "Let's go make some art."

"You guys can sleep upstairs. Unless you want coffee?" Gerard asks, holding up his mug.

"Sleep. Then coffee," Mikey says, also getting up from the table. He wraps an arm around Alicia's waist and they follow Lindsey out of the room.

***

Once they're upstairs, locked into a bedroom, Mikey can't sleep. Alicia was out as soon as her head hit the pillow, but for Mikey, knowing that she's going to leave and go out into a world where dead things are going to try and eat her leaves his mind racing. He can't stop thinking about all of the horrible possibilities.

When he closes his eyes, he sees her being ripped apart, and the idea makes him sick. He doesn't want to think that way - he shouldn't think that way - but he can't stop himself. And maybe he moves a little too much as he tries to get comfortable, because she shifts and wraps her arms around him.

"Sleep," she orders, the word distorted by the way her face presses against his shoulder. He knows already that he can't sleep, so he does the next best thing, slipping his fingers underneath the t-shirt she's sleeping in. Her bare skin is warm underneath his fingers and he feels her shiver, feels the goosebumps on her skin.

"Your hands are cold," she tells him. He makes an agreeable noise and shifts so that they're laying more side-by-side. His hands are almost always cold.

"You'll warm them up," Mikey says, pressing his palms flat against her skin. She pushes herself up onto her elbows and looks at him, reaching her hand up and smoothing down his hair.

"Are you scared?" she whispers to him, leaning forward until her lips brush against his.

"I know you'll make sure Lyn comes back in one piece," he says, all false bravado. He's terrified that neither of them will make it back.

"What about me?" Alicia asks. She brushes her lips against his mouth, and he closes his eyes.

"Well," he says, like he has to think about it. "It'd be nice if you came back in one piece."

"Just nice?" she asks.

"I'd just have to go and get eaten too," Mikey tells her. "And we'll shuffle around and eat brains together."

She laughs, but it's almost a sob, and covers his mouth with hers. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her tight against him, and her fingers fist up in his hair even though she's just smoothed it out against his head. He only loosens his grip to slide his hands into the pajamas she's wearing, shoving them down her hips.

"You really wanna do this here?" Alicia asks. It is his brother's house. And his brother - well, Gerard might not be awake, but Lyn and B are.

"No," Mikey says, but it doesn't stop him. He hasn't been in bands for half his life without learning how to be quiet, and he knows that Alicia's learned the same thing.

He doesn't want to, but he's going to. She's there, she's warm, and this might be the last chance he has to touch his wife before the zombies eat her. They fumble out of their clothes and she covers his mouth with her hand as they fuck, pressing her face into his shoulder, muffling the heavy breathing.

They stay naked under the covers and he'd swear that he could feel her heart beating against his chest, only he knows that's a little crazy. Her body sticks to his with sweat, and this time he's able to fall asleep. He's lucky he doesn't dream.

***

Alicia doesn't hesitate and puts the hilt of the sword she borrowed from Gerard through the glass of the sports store doors. An alarm starts going off. It's kind of funny to think that anything still has an alarm set with the zombies lurching through the area. She supposes this means that the store is still secure.

It also might mean the store still has guns.

"Okay," Lyn says, once they're through the door. "You wanna stay here and make sure nothing gets in?"

"And you think your husband wouldn't kill me if I let you out of my sight and you got eaten?" Alicia asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow with half a grin.

"Then your husband would kill him. It would get ugly," Lyn says. She stands there for a moment, silent. "Stay here and make sure nothing gets in."

"Yell if you need me," Alicia says.

"Got it," Lyn says, and heads off through the store.

In the end, it turns out that zombies aren't their problem at all. Sure, Alicia sees them shuffling along the streets and the freeway, and she's ready if they come toward her, but the real problem comes in the guys who steal the car.

They steal the car while Alicia is standing right the fuck there, and when she runs out of the building yelling, they draw guns on her. It's safer for her to drop to the ground and watch them leave. She lets out a string of swears and pushes herself up just as a zombie grabs for her. Fucking assholes. That was her car, too.

Her sword is dripping with gore as she runs back into the store to find Lyn. Lindsey is stuffing the two bags they brought full of guns and ammo. Handguns, shotguns - she's broken the cases open and is helping herself.

"We have a problem," Alicia says, and Lyn looks up, startled.

"Are there zombies?" she asks.

"I already killed them," Alicia says.

"Then what's the problem?" Lyn says, turning back to shoving guns into the bag.

"Someone just stole my car," Alicia says.

Lyn stops, turns, and looks up at her. "What? Like, zombies stole the car?"

"Zombies can't drive," Alicia says. "Some guys decided that they needed a ride. They shot at me when I tried to stop them."

"Oh," Lyn says. She stands there for a moment, and Alicia waits, hoping Lyn will reveal that she knows how to hot-wire a car or something like that. "We can't just... walk back to the house. It's too far with zombies walking around."

"Yeah," Alicia says. She's still waiting for the grand revelation.

"They're going to have to come and get us," Lyn says. Alicia sighs. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. She doesn't want to think about the guys trying to bundle B down into the city, or Mikey with his foot cut open trying to hobble away from zombies.

"I was kind of hoping you'd say that you know how to hot wire cars or something and you'd be able to get us out of here," Alicia says.

"I wish," Lyn says, sliding her phone out of her pocket.

***

Mikey and Gerard have problems of their own.

Something about Alicia and Lindsey leaving the house alerted the zombies to the presence of fresh human meat. He and Gerard are upstairs when they hear the sound of glass breaking. Gerard looks at him.

"I didn't hear anything," Mikey says, wishing it were true and that Gerard might believe it when he says it. Gerard gets up and grabs the sword he's stashed on top of the dresser and heads out of investigate, leaving Mikey sitting on the floor with the kid.

"What do you know about zombies?" he asks her. She ignores the question and hands him a crayon.

Gerard comes back less than a minute later, closing the door and locking it behind him. Mikey doesn't need to look at him to know that he's about to have a freak out. Mikey can tell.

"So there are zombies in the house, and– " Mikey prompts. He finally looks up. Gerard is leaning against the door with his eyes closed, like he needs a second to gather himself.

"And we're on the second floor with no way down. And we have B. And you can't run," Gerard says.

"I can run," Mikey says. He doesn't have shoes on and he's got a bandage taped to the bottom of his foot. At least this one hasn't bled through yet, but he hadn't really moved around much since he'd put it on, either.

"Yeah, you say that, but I saw what happened to your shoe when you tried that before," Gerard says.

"That was before. This is now. Are we really about to have this argument or can we figure out a way to get out of here?" Mikey asks.

"We're just going to have to leave her here and kill them," Gerard says.

Mikey gives him a look. "Leave her here? Alone? She's two, Gerard.”

"I know that, but she's safer in here if we go out there," Gerard says.

"Until we both get eaten and they come for her," Mikey snaps.

Gerard opens his mouth to say something else, and his phone starts ringing. Mikey had always thought that cell towers would be overloaded and not work anymore once the zombie apocalypse hit, but that doesn't seem to be the case. At least, not at this point.

"Someone stole the car," Gerard relays, after he's spoken to Lindsey. "We have to go get them."

"Oh yes, because it's so easy for us to get out right now," Mikey says. He sighs and gets up, grabbing his socks and pulling them on. He has his own sword, and all the need to do is get out of the house and into the car. Mikey can drive while Gerard straps Bandit in.

This is going to be an adventure.

"How fucked are we?" Mikey asks.

For once Gerard doesn't give him shit for swearing in front of B - she repeats things, now, and it's going to get out of hand if they don't watch their mouths - and just shakes his head. "There's maybe five. That I saw. They're just lurching around down there - I don't think they realize they can come up the stairs."

"We can kill five," Mikey says. "They're slow. The swords are sharp."

"Sure, but it'll just be me. You're carrying her," Gerard says, nodding toward where B is still sitting on the floor, drawing vigorously on a sheet of paper.

"Fine," Mikey says. He pulls his shoes on, and the pressure of the shoe on the cut on his foot hurts, but he ignores it. He has to ignore it, because they need to get the fuck out of there, and they need to get out now.

Gerard packs Bandit up, and hands her to Mikey. Mikey holds his niece on one hip, her bag over his shoulder, and grips the sword in one hand. Gerard leads them out of the room.

It's quick and violent, zombie gore flying as Gerard's sword slices through things. He puts himself between the garage door and where Mikey is standing with Bandit, and Mikey runs for it. He gets the door open and gets inside, and there's nothing, just darkness and heat. He pulls the door open and in the light, checks to make sure there's not a zombie hiding in the back seat. He puts Bandit in and gets in the driver seat as Gerard bursts through the kitchen door and throws himself into the back.

"Go go go," he says. The garage door is lifting and in the rear-view Mikey can see first feet, then shins and knees.

"I can't, really," Mikey says, because he has to wait on the fucking garage door, and oh, hey, there's zombies. Waists, torsos, necks, mouths, and they lurch through, a few of them banging their heads like storm troopers on the way. Gerard is swearing under his breath as he tries to buckle Bandit into her car seat too quickly and can't get anything to latch.

"Hold on," Mikey finally says, putting the car in reverse and slamming his foot down on the gas.

Gerard lurches forward and bangs against the back of the driver's seat, and Mikey swerves down the driveway, bumping over zombies on his way. Another string of swears comes out of his brother's mouth as he tries to get himself upright and climb into the passenger seat.

"Hope we still have a bumper," Mikey says, throwing the car into gear and rocketing down the street.

"I think I have whiplash," Gerard says.

"You were the one telling me to go before the door was even open," Mikey says casually, dodging around abandoned cars and lurching bodies as he drives down the street.

"I love you but that doesn't mean I won't kick your ass," Gerard says. He manages to get himself into the front seat and buckled in before twisting around and handing Bandit a notebook and a pen to draw with, letting her pick up where she left off at home.

"I was just doing what I was told," Mikey replies. "Now, where am I going?"

***

Mikey pulls the trigger frantically as he goes down underneath cold, rotting flesh. Alicia's screaming something but he can't make sense of it while he's trying to keep gnashing teeth from getting to his face and neck.

He jerks the gun up and fires again, splattering everything within a 10 foot radius in gore. Brains drip down onto his face as he lays on the floor. He smells like zombie now, maybe they'll think that he's dead. Gunfire continues around him, and he can hear yelling, and zombies moaning.

"Come on," Alicia says, pushing at the body laying on top of him. "Come on, we have to go. Come on." She sounds frantic. Scared. He doesn't like it.

She grabs his hand and her fingers slide in the black blood that covers most of his body as she pulls at him, trying to snap him out of the shock that he almost died. Once he's on his feet, he spits once, twice, but doesn't taste anything but fear as they run for the car, his boots slipping in the brains splattered on the floor.

Distantly, Mikey thinks he doesn't understand. They've been looting this warehouse for nearly a month now, taking what they need to fortify their living space. And all of a sudden, today, it's full of the living dead, gnashing their teeth and crying out for food.

Mikey stumbles into the car, tumbling into the floor of the back seat. Strapped into one side, Bandit is screaming because both of her parents are yelling. The back door is still open when the car starts moving, Alicia hanging out the door and firing at a zombie who is clinging to the edge of the door.

Gerard slams on the brakes and it goes flying. Alicia reaches out and jerks the door shut. Mikey scrunches his legs up so that Alicia has more room.

"Is he okay?" Gerard asks. His voice sounds at least as frantic as Alicia's was earlier when she pulled him up off the floor. "Did he get bitten?"

"I don't know," Alicia says.

"I don't think so," Mikey says. His voice is muffled down near the floor and he's not sure that they hear him.

Alicia's covered in blood and she's doing a terrible job of convincing Bandit that she shouldn't be crying. Lindsey twists around in the seat as best she can, trying to comfort her daughter. The home improvement store they've been stealing from isn't far from where they're living. Gerard circles the building before pulling to a stop near the doors they use to get in and out, making sure that none of the doors have been broken into.

Gerard turns the car off and gets out, going to open the door, a gun in his hand. Alicia pushes her door open and tumbles out, untangling herself as she goes. She leans back in, reaching out and grabbing hold of Mikey's hands.

"Come on," she says. Her hands slide in his - he's soaked with zombie blood, thick and dark, and chunks of brains. "Baby," she says, a note of panic in her voice.

"I'm okay," Mikey says. He lets her help him up and out. His shirt sticks to his skin and it feels disgusting.

"Are you sure?" she asks. She slides her arm around him and supports him as they walk toward the door even though he doesn't really need it. Gerard is waiting, and they slip through into the cool darkness of the service corridor of the mall.

Alicia has her gun drawn as she hits the light switch, and she and Gerard sandwich Mikey and Lindsey, who's carrying Bandit, between them.

They make their way up the escalators as quickly as they can, toward the boarded- up restaurant. Mikey stumbles, reeling as Gerard hurries to unlock the padlock that keeps the place closed and free of monsters when they're not around. Alicia pulls him in tight against her. He knows she wants to get his clothes off, check him for bites.

They spent a week boarding up the mall. It's not a huge place, but they stole a lot of plywood sheets, and when those ran out, they switched to anything they could get their hands on. They started with the restaurant, dragging mattresses from other stores and stealing pillows and blankets. They have a kitchen, and they've rigged up a shower nozzle to one of the bathroom sinks so they can keep clean.

Once they'd made the restaurant livable, fortified, they got to work on the rest of the mall. It had been fast, covering glass doors with sheets of wood and nailing them with stolen nail guns from the home and garden center across the highway. They'd spent hours trying to find keys to delivery trucks, working in pairs so they were always covered from zombie attack. They'd spent over a month inside the mall, and while they'd seen zombies lurking around outside, none had gotten in.

It was definitely better than _Dawn Of The Dead_ , that was for sure.

Alicia maneuvers Mikey through the restaurant and back to the bathrooms, leaving Gerard to fumble through their piles of pilfered clothing for something for Mikey to wear after he's clean. He folds the clothes and leaves them on a chair near the bathroom door, walking over to kneel down on the floor and pull Mikey's blood-covered boots off while Alicia fights with the sink's water temperature.

Mikey feels numb. He had a zombie's face inches from his, biting and clawing and trying to eat him. It's not the first time, but it's the worst time. He remembers the screaming, incoherent, Alicia and his brother trying to get to him, trying to help him.

He jumps, startled, when Gerard tugs his t-shirt up. "Raise your arms up," Gerard says, and Mikey looks up at him. He just feels lost. He wants all of this to be over, to wake up and realize it's all a dream. "Come on, we have to get this shit off you."

Mikey raises his arms up and Gerard tugs the shirt up.

"Keep your mouth closed," Alicia says. "God knows what will happen if you get it in your mouth."

"You didn't get it in your mouth, did you?" Gerard says. A worried look crosses his face.

"I don't think so," Mikey says. "I don't think I'm bitten either and I can't keep my mouth closed if you keep asking me questions. You're like a fucking dentist. Let me stick my hands in your mouth and then ask you all this shit."

Gerard snorts. Alicia turns the spray nozzle on Mikey and he yelps. It's hard for them to regulate the water temperature in a public bathroom, and this water is pretty cold. He gets up and strips down to his underwear, and obliges Alicia by keeping his mouth shut while she washes the brains out of his hair. Gerard tries to inspect him for bites and a brief scuffle ensues - there's a great deal of slapping and a lot of snickering.

The tension and the fear seems to wash away with the blood and brains that run off of Mikey's skin. Once Mikey seems normal, Gerard walks out, saying he'll take the first watch of the night. It's no different than normal, really, because Gerard is nothing if not a night owl. He's always the one awake most of the night.

Once he's gone, Alicia strips off her shirt to wash the blood off of her skin as well. Mikey reaches out and pulls her in, kissing her. She pulls back, shaking her head, and he looks at her, confused.

"I thought I lost you," she says, her voice half-choked.

"I'm okay," he tells her, pushing her hair back behind her ear. It's caked with blood. "Here," he says, and takes the spray nozzle out of her hands. "You have something in your hair."

"Oh," she says. She lets him unhook her bra, lets him unbutton her jeans and push them down. They stick to her thighs, already wet. She moves away from him, stripping to nothing and dropping her clothes on the floor.

It takes him another moment to realize that she's trying not to cry.

He drops the shower nozzle and reaches out, pulling her against him. She only fights him for a second, but before he even has a chance to think about letting go of her she's wrapped her arms around him in turn and pressed her face against the wet, bare skin of his shoulder. They stand there, silent, the water spraying against their feet.

"I've never been that scared," she says finally, pushing back just enough that she can look at him. "I've never been so fucking scared. Not even the first night they broke the window. I knew they couldn't. I knew you couldn't get hurt then, that I could help you. Today I couldn't."

"But I'm okay," Mikey tells her. "I'm fine. I killed it."

"But what about next time, Mikey?" she asks, her voice getting louder. "There's going to be a next time, and you know it. And what if next time you do get bitten? What if next time you die?"

"Then I die, Alicia," Mikey says. "If we die, we die. There's nothing we can do about that."

"I don't want you to die," Alicia says. "I don't want to watch you die."

He kisses her roughly, digging his fingers into her back and trying to pull her even closer. There's no space left between them and if they could become one person, maybe that would be better. Maybe then they wouldn't have to worry about getting hurt, about one of them getting bitten or dying. But it's not possible, and he knows that. Instead, he slides his hands down her sides, and she helps him lift her up onto the sink, wrapping her legs around his hips.

The sex isn't good, necessarily; it's rough and fast and desperate. They haven't had a chance to be alone, haven't had the time, so many other factors that have kept them from being as intimate as they'd like. Mikey almost died - they're desperate to be closer, to get close enough.

They finish washing up afterward, moving slowly, toweling each other off after. Mikey gets dressed and leaves the bathroom to grab clothes for Alicia. Gerard didn't think about that, and Mikey supposes that he doesn't really blame him, since all they were concerned with at the time was making sure that Mikey hadn't been bitten, and cleaning him up.

Alicia clings to him as they lay on their mattress on the floor, and he strokes her wet hair. They both know that neither of them will be able to sleep. They're still lying awake when Gerard comes around the corner.

"There was just an announcement," he says. "On the news."

The strangest thing about the zombie apocalypse is that the news never stopped broadcasting. In the movies, everyone died, and there was no information. Not now. The news never stopped - most channels switched to non-stop news coverage, even if there was nothing new to broadcast.

"The government - there's. A vaccine. To stop the spread. Of the zombies. They're sending military units to find survivors," Gerard says.

Mikey pushes himself up on one elbow and looks at his brother. He must have fallen asleep. There's no way what Gerard is saying could possibly be true. It's been so long since all of this started. Or maybe it hasn't been long enough. Is two months long enough to develop a vaccine to a virus that was man-made in the first place?

"How are they going to find people?" Alicia asks. She sits up as well, combing her fingers through her hair. Mikey turns his head slightly, watching her. She looks tired. Older than she should.

"There's a number to call," Gerard says.

"Oh that's nice. We just call them and then they come and get us?" Alicia asks. She's in a bad mood - that much is obvious. Mikey isn't sure he blames her. It's been a long day.

"Well, they take the calls by area," Gerard says. "I'm not really sure how it's going to work."

"Did you already call?" Mikey asks.

"Lyn's on the phone with them. I came in here to tell you. She's on hold," Gerard says.

It's so normal. Lindsey's on hold with the government. Mikey starts laughing. He can't help himself.

"Obviously he's lost his mind," Alicia says. She's smiling too. Gerard grins at both of them and goes to find out if Lindsey's gotten to talk to anyone yet.

***

Something's wrong.

Maybe Mikey doesn't realize it, but Gerard can tell. He's too quiet, stares into space more than he normally would. Mikey can be a space cadet sometimes, but this is beyond.

They're all waiting and anxious, keeping lookouts to see if someone's coming for them, and it takes nearly a week before Gerard realizes that Mikey isn't really paying attention to anything. He can stand there for hours and watch the road, but he's not seeing anything. Zombies could walk right up to his face and he might not notice.

"Are you okay?" Gerard finally asks him.

"Huh?" Mikey says. He looks surprised to see Gerard standing beside him.

"I asked if you were okay," Gerard said.

"I guess? I mean, I'm just watching the road," Mikey says.

"I don't think you're watching anything. What's going on?" Gerard asks. "Are you and Alicia okay? I mean, I know stuff was weird the other night, but you're fine, so... what's going on?"

Gerard feels awkward. He doesn't know what to say, because he's not sure what's wrong with Mikey. He feels like he's missing something, but at the same time, he's not sure that it's not just the nerves that all of them have about someone finally coming to get them out of the mall.

"No, we're fine," Mikey says. "I'm fine. I'm just. I don't know. If there's something wrong I don't know what it is."

"You know I'd fix whatever it is, if I could," Gerard says. Mikey looks up at him and smiles a little bit.

"I know you would," Mikey says. Gerard wraps both arms around him and squeezes him tightly. Mikey squeezes back, and they spend a few seconds trying to crack each other's backs before letting go.

"Your time's up in about an hour," Gerard says. "I'll come back then."

***

Mikey doesn't have a zombie bite, but he doesn't know what's wrong with him, either.

He feels like he's in a fog, like everything that's real is distant. It's like he can't see things as well, or feel them. When Alicia is sleeping beside him, he feels her warmth, too hot next to him. He's asked her if she's hot before, but she always reassures him that she's fine. He feels too hot in his own skin, like he has a fever.

Deep inside him, he's terrified that maybe he did swallow some of the zombie's blood, or some of its brains.

Alicia's skin smells good. He wonders if this is what it's like for vampires - he believes they're probably out there, now that he's experienced fucking zombies, even though abstractly he realizes that the zombies are man-made and vampires probably wouldn't be - being able to smell the blood in his wife's veins.

He hates that when he's lying beside her, all he can think about his how much he wants to sink his teeth into her, to taste her. He's terrified by what is happening to him.

"Your hands are cold," Alicia says sleepily. They are. His hands are almost always cold. He's the kind of guy that wears sweatshirts in the summertime. But he's always been able to press his hands against Alicia's skin, to warm them up. But now, they never get warm. He's always too hot but his hands never get warm.

"Ow?" Alicia says, pushing at him. "Don't bite so hard."

Mikey hadn't even realized that he'd bitten down. There's a ring of teeth-marks on her collarbone, and he feels like shit. "Sorry," he whispers to her. He presses his lips against the spot instead.

They shouldn't be fooling around, not now, not like this, not knowing if they're going to be suddenly rescued. But he wants his mouth on her.

The worst part is that he wants to bite her.

He pulls away and pushes himself backward across the mattress, away from her. She sits up, confused, pulling her shirt down over her stomach.

"There's something wrong with me," he whispers. He leans against the bar that forms one wall of their 'bedroom' and pulls his knees up against his chest. "Really, really wrong."

"Mikey," Alicia says. She sounds scared.

"I think. I think I swallowed. When the zombie was on me. I didn't think anything got into my mouth but something must have," Mikey says. "I don't. All I know is that you smell like food and I didn't mean to bite you. I didn't mean to, I swear. I didn't know that I did it."

"I'm going to go and get Gerard," Alicia says. She gets up and all but runs away from him.

***

The army shows up on a Wednesday.

Gerard can't remember how long it's been since Mikey called him at four in the morning and said there was a zombie on his front porch. It feels like it's been years, but he knows it's only been weeks, maybe a couple of months. Everything runs together when you've been living in a mall as long as they have.

Armored vehicles pull into the mall parking lot, and Gerard pushes open the door, walking outside with his hands held up. They have guns drawn, and he wants very much for them to not shoot him. Lindsey is behind him, with a gun, watching. Alicia is babysitting Mikey and Bandit upstairs.

"How many survivors?" asks the man who gets out of the vehicle. Gerard hesitates.

"Four adults. One baby," he finally says. He can't bring himself to admit that his brother might not be a survivor after all.

"Are the others inside?" the soldier asks. Gerard nods his head. "Get in the truck. They'll vaccinate you right now, and we'll take you to a safe place. Who does the kid belong to?"

"Me," Gerard says. "She's my daughter."

Lyn walks out of the building. "Mine too," she says. She puts the gun down and moves toward them.

"She's a lucky kid, then, to still have both of her parents," the soldier says. "Where is she?"

"She's with my sister-in-law. Upstairs, where we've been staying," Gerard says. He lets the soldiers hurry him into the van. There's a medic waiting with a selection of needles. He feels his stomach flip. "I still hate needles," he says faintly.

Lindsey reaches out and takes hold of his hand. "One of you can show me where the others are after you've been vaccinated," the soldier says. While he's speaking, the medic jabs the needle into Gerard's arm. He swears, jerking away. He wasn't ready. He needed to brace himself. Now he just feels like he might throw up.

"Come on," the soldier says. Gerard gets down out of the truck on wobbly legs. "Have you seen any zombies today."

"No," Gerard says. "We haven't seen any for days." He doesn't mention that his brother is upstairs and half a zombie as it is.

Gerard leads the soldier into the mall and up the escalator steps to the restaurant where they've made their home. On the other side of the door, he can hear chattering as Bandit tells Alicia a story. He unlocks the padlock and goes inside.

"I just got vaccinated," he announces. Bandit doesn't know what that means, he knows, but she holds up a crayon to him anyway. "Thank you," he says, taking it from her before leaning down and picking her up.

The soldier glances around, takes in Alicia still sitting at the table. "Where's the other adult?" he asks.

"Alicia," Gerard says. "Can you. They've put Lindsey in a truck, can you take Bandit to her?"

"He's my husband, G," Alicia says. She gets up, but she doesn't move toward the door.

"Is there something I need to know?" the soldier asks.

"Mikey - my brother - might have. Accidentally swallowed zombie brains. Or blood. We're not sure," Gerard says.

"Fuck," the soldier says. He glances at Alicia. "Sorry ma'am. I need both of you to go downstairs. Now."

"Don't you dare kill him," Alicia says, her voice hard. "Don't you fucking dare."

"If he's changed, we don't have a choice," the soldier says. He takes a radio from his hip and speaks into it. "We've got one that's in transition up here. Bring as stretcher. He needs to go to the other truck."

"What? What are you going to do?" Alicia asks. "You can't kill him. I won't let you."

"Ma'am, you need to go. Go downstairs, go out to the trucks and get your vaccine," the soldier says levelly. "Please don't make this a problem."

"Please don't kill him," Gerard says. He's willing to put up a fight, too, even if he is holding his kid.

"We won't unless we have to, but he may have reached a point where we aren't able to save him," the soldier says. Alicia turns and walks away, back into the 'bedroom' she shares with Mikey. The soldier follows, with Gerard right behind him.

Mikey is curled up on his side on the mattress. His skin is greyish, and he's barely breathing anymore. He's dying, that much is clear. Alicia kneels down next to him on the mattress.

"Wake up," she says. "Wake up and show them you're not dead. Prove that you're still in there." Mikey doesn't really respond, but Gerard watches his fingers move, watches him try to grasp at her hands. He's still in there somewhere. He knows that it's Alicia holding him, touching him.

"We'll do what we can," the soldier says. "Go. Ma'am, if you don't go, I will forcibly remove you."

In the end, he has to strong-arm Alicia out of the room. She puts up a fight until he threatens to have her sedated. Gerard leads her out and down the stairs, Bandit still in his arms.

***

Everything is white.

Mikey is confused, because the last place he remembers being is in the restaurant, sleeping on the mattress and thinking about how he wanted to sink his teeth into his wife, and not in a sexy way. The fact that he even thought that makes his stomach churn.

He's in a hospital bed, strapped down. There are places where his arms have been chafed raw by restraints. The film that was over everything before is gone, though. He doesn't know what's happening.

A woman in scrubs walks into the room, and he realizes that they must have been rescued.

"What's going on?" he asks her. He wants to move, to stretch, to enjoy the way it feels to be in his own skin again.

The nurse walks over and checks his pulse. "What's your full name?" she asks him.

"Michael James Way," he responds. "I don't understand what - "

"Birthdate?"

"September 10, 1980," Mikey says. "Where's my brother? And Alicia?"

"They're in another facility. This is the medical facility. You were turning into a zombie when we found you," the nurse explains.

"But I'm not," Mikey asks.

"You're not, fortunately. Since you're now lucid, we can release you."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

***

It takes Mikey a solid half-hour to find the apartment that his brother is living in on the army base. It's weird to walk around, to see the fences and the zombies on the other side, trying to reach through the bars. They're made of iron stakes, driven into the ground.

Mikey knocks on the door instead of just letting himself in. He can hear voices inside, and when the door opens, Gerard is on the other side, staring at him in shock.

"So I guess I'm not a zombie," Mikey says by way of greeting. All of a sudden, Gerard is flinging his arms around his brother and squeezing him tightly. Mikey feels his back pop.

"You asshole, I was so afraid you were going to die. They wouldn't let us see you and it's been nearly two weeks," Gerard says.

"I guess it takes a long time for zombie to work out of your system? Be gentle with me," Mikey says. There are bandages around his arms covering the chafed places where he was pinned down.

"Come on," Gerard says. "I know you like me, but your wife is upstairs."

"I _would_ like to see her," Mikey says.

"She nearly got her ass kicked by a soldier for you," Gerard says. "We were all so scared that they were just going to put you out of your misery."

"I'm glad they didn't," Mikey says. He walks with Gerard to the end of the hall and up a set of stairs to the next floor. Gerard explains that the apartment that Alicia's been given is small, but cozy.

Gerard knocks then lets himself into the apartment. He has a key, and he motions for Mikey to be quiet as he leads him inside. Alicia is in the kitchen, fussing with something in the fridge.

"Hey, do you think Lindsey knows what the hell to do with this stuff?" she asks, holding up some unidentifiable vegetable as she turns. She drops it when she realizes Mikey is standing there, and knocks the trash bin over in her haste to get to him.

He wraps his arms around her tightly as she buries her face into his shoulder. He can feel her tears soaking into his shirt, and he presses his nose into her hair and inhales. She smells good, like soap and laundry detergent and _Alicia_ , and not at all like food.

"I'll, uh," Gerard says, "leave you two alone for a bit. Come downstairs for dinner later, okay?"

"All right," Mikey says. He turns around until he can see Gerard, taking Alicia with him. He smiles at his brother over her shoulder.

"See you later," Gerard says.

"Lock the door when you leave," Alicia yells.

The door closes and Mikey moves his hands, raising them to cup Alicia's face. "I'm sorry I worried you," he says.

She shakes her head. "Don't want to talk about it. You're here now. You're alive. That's what matters."

He smiles, and kisses her.

"Your hands are cold," she tells him.

"They're always cold," he replies. He moves his hands back down to her waist, slipping his hands underneath her t-shirt. "Can I warm them up?"

She laughs at him.

"Of course," she says.

**Author's Note:**

> written for bandombigbang 2011, wave 2. please click [here](http://chicanery.livejournal.com/8919.html) for art and [here](http://chicanery.livejournal.com/9108.html) for the mix.


End file.
